onions, pickled

We've gotten a few requests for this over the last week, so...

Zuni's pickled onions are a real coup de coeur in our household. It's one of Judy Rodgers' simplest recipes, but it's truly one of our favorites. Great with charcuterie, excellent in a grilled cheese sandwich, and essential with our burgers. They're a bit tedious to make, because the recipe requires to repeat steps (three times!), but the extra effort is absolutely worth it. Trust us.

fig. a: pickled onions à la Zuni

Zuni Cafe Pickled Onions

2 medium-large red onions, peeled
3 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cinnamon stick
a few cloves
a few allspice berries
a dried red chili
2 bay leaves
a few peppercorns

To prepare your brine, combine everything but the onions and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and allow to infuse.

Slice onions about 3/8" thick. Separate them into rings. Bring the brine to a boil again and add about 1/3 of the onions. Bring back to a simmer, and as soon as it does, remove the onions, placing them on a baking sheet. Continue this process with the rest of the onions, then repeat the entire process twice, so that each batch of onions gets blanched a total of three times in the brine. Make sure to allow the onions to cool between each round of blanching.

The onions will turn a bright fuchsia hue and will be perfectly tender-crisp.

Place the onions in a jar with enough of their brine to cover and refrigerate. The onions will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.

Look at that color! Talk about perfect for St. Valentine's Day... Talk about a gift that keeps on giving. Just a thought.

aj

AEB classics #87: the AEB Burger

We've been pretty serious about our burgers for a while now, but when we got a meat grinder attachment for our standing mixer, things got even more serious. In fact, the burgers that have resulted have been seriously outstanding, taking our deluxe home burger to new heights.

What are the keys to a full-on AEB Burger? The quality of the meat, the fat content, salting the meat 24 hours in advance, grinding the meat fresh, and forming the patties just so, without overworking them. Then there's the buns--always crucial. And while this burger is so good it doesn't require a whole lot of fixings, we really don't make burgers that often, so we'll be damned if we're not going put out a nice spread so that we can turn that burger into a gloriously overstuffed mess.

The AEB Burger

2 lbs beef chuck from a reputable butcher, roughly 20% fat content
kosher salt

If you're grinding your own beef, 24 hours before you make your burgers, salt your beef generously, and keep it in the refrigerator overnight.

fig. a: chuck

special equipment: a meat grinder
freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp unsalted butter, portioned into four pats of butter

The next day, grind your meat twice through your meat grinder (we have two attachments for our grinder, and we use the coarser of the two). Season the meat with black pepper (remember, you've already salted the meat--no need to do it again).

fig. b: freshly ground chuck

Obviously, if you don't have a meat grinder, just start the recipe here. Try and get the best, freshest ground chuck you can find. You'll be missing out on the added value of salting the meat 24 hours in advance, but you'll still wind up with a great burger (just remember to salt each patty a bit when you season them).

Separate the beef into four portions. Gently form each portion of beef into a patty, making sure to place a pat of butter inside each of your patties. [The butter will baste the meat from the inside as it cooks.] Use just enough pressure to form the ground beef into a patty, and no more. Avoid overworking the meat. Set aside.

fig. c: freshly fried smoky bacon

4 strips of good, smoky bacon

Fry up your bacon in a large cast-iron pan until your strips are crispy. Set aside.

4 quality hamburger buns

Slice your buns and plate them.

fig. d: pickled onions

Now, lay out your hamburger fixings.

We recommend:
Boston lettuce
sliced beefsteak tomatoes (if in season, which they absolutely were not last, when we made the latest batch of these burgers, so we excluded tomatoes altogether)
sliced pickled cucumbers
pickled onions
pickled green tomato chow chow
mayonnaise
quality mustard
ketchup, preferably homemade

Whatever you settle on, your fixings tables should convey plenitude. It should look something like this:

fig. e: hamburger fixings

Fresh French fries are awfully nice, but a good potato chip can do the trick too. We're particularly fond of Covered Bridge (Hartland, NB) brand at the moment.

fig. f: real potato chips

special equipment: large pan, preferably cast-iron
a large lid that fits the pan
4 slices of cheese, preferably something interesting but not overwhelming, like an aged cheddar or a caraway gouda (yes!)

Now it's time to cook up your burgers. Choose the largest cast-iron pan you have on hand. If it's the one you cooked the bacon in, set it a notch above medium heat. If it's not the one you cooked the bacon in, transfer the bacon fat to the pan and turn the heat to a notch above medium heat. When the pan is good and hot, place all four of your patties in at once. The pan should be hot enough to make the patties sizzle on contact. Let the patties sizzle for 3 minutes without moving them or flattening them. Flip the patties over and cook for another 3 minutes. The patties should have a nice deep crust on them, but they shouldn't be overly blackened. When the second 3 minutes are up, flip the patties again, turn the heat down to low, cover the pan and cook for 2 minutes. Make sure your cheese slices are ready. When the 2 minutes are up, flip the patties again, cover them with cheese, cover with the lid again, and cook for a final 2 minutes. The patties should be perfectly medium-rare after this final 2 minutes.

Place each patty on a bun, adorn with a slice of bacon, and serve, allowing your dining companions to dress their burgers according to their own whims. (Mine: lettuce, pickled onions, chow chow, mayonnaise, strong Belgian mustard, and an occasional dab of homemade ketchup.)

The finished product should look something like this, and it should look and smell so crazy-good that you just start chomping, possibly without even remembering to put your lettuce inside your burger first.

fig. g: burger time

Your burger should taste so crazy-good, that just thinking about it, days later, drives you, well, crazy. Seriously crazy.

Fully satisfies 4.

Got your own burger dos and don'ts? By all means, send 'em in.

aj

ps--Thanks to Judy Rodgers' Zuni Cafe Cookbook for the tips on purchasing, salting, and grinding our beef, and to Saveur's "The Burger Bible" issue (our fave issue of 2009) for the "pat of butter" tip and a whole lot of inspiration.

fava up first

fig. a: the three faces of fava

As Alice Waters puts it in Chez Panisse Vegetables, "The fava bean, Vicia fabia, was the bean of Europe before contact with the New World." A few hundred years later, the fava bean--especially in its young, tender, spring/summer incarnation--became the bean of California Cuisine. Waters goes on to describe the scene at Chez Panisse every spring when the favas come into season:

Shelling fava beans has become a springtime ritual at the restaurant. Big baskets of them are brought out to keep all hands busy during long meetings, menu discussions, and even job interviews.

And in the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook, Waters puts it like this:

It's not uncommon in informal cafés in Europe to see waiters peeling garlic during a quiet time. At Chez Panisse, they peel fava beans--lots of them. Sometimes the customers standing at the bar help out.

Here in Montreal, fava beans are hardly an important part of the local cuisine--nouvelle or otherwise--but there is certainly enough of a Mediterranean presence in the region (thank god!) to make fava beans a part of our seasonal, early-21st century diet. You definitely have to go out and look for them, though--in your markets, in your seasonally minded restaurants. And, remember, the season is short. As indicated above, fava beans are very much a harbinger of spring in Northern California. Around here, however, they're a mid-summer crop, and, friends, the time is now.

To get the full fava bean experience, you have to do a little work--shelling and peeling them requires some determination because you have to get from that big, long, fleshy pod stage, to that pale green/off-white stage, to that bright green stage [pictured above]--but all that work pays off, because once you've managed to extract that bright green, kidney-shaped bean from its protective layers, the cooking time is practically instant, and its seductive charms are immediate.

Most standard accounts of shelling and peeling favas go something like this one in Alice Waters, Patricia Curtan, and Martine Labro's Chez Panisse: Pasta, Pizza, and Calzone:

Picked young enough, they can be shelled and eaten raw, skin and all. When they are a little older and the skin is no longer bright green, they must be skinned. A good way to do this is to blanch the shelled beans for a minute or so [elsewhere Waters recommends "30 seconds to 1 minute"] in boiling water. Drain them and allow to cool. Use your thumbnail to pull open the sprout end and squeeze the bean out of its skin. It will pop right out. Once you get the hang of it, this goes very quickly.

Some chefs, like Zuni Cafe's Judy Rodgers, prefer keeping fava beans raw, arguing that the blanching process, however short, changes the texture of the beans too much. But in our own experience, blanching the beans for 30-60 seconds has produced the results we've been the happiest with. If you want to give raw fava beans a spin--and there's no reason you shouldn't--both Rodgers and Waters recommend serving them in the Tuscan style, with salami, and possibly a sheep's milk cheese (Rodgers also recommends a Ligurian white--Vermentino "Vigna U Munte," Colle dei Bardellini, 2000--as her wine pairing).

But, like I said, our favorite fava bean preparation involves blanching the beans slightly, then gently sautéing them to create a basic ragù. The last fava bean dish I made was based on this recipe from Waters, Curtan, and Labro's book:

Fettucine, fava beans, saffron, & crème fraîche

1/2 pound [fresh] fava beans
1 tbsp virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper
a few fresh basil leaves
3/4 cup crème fraîche
saffron
fettucine for 2
fresh chives

Shell and skin the fava beans [see directions above]. Cook them gently in olive oil with the chopped garlic for 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add some basil leaves cut in ribbons, the crème fraîche, and a small pinch of saffron. Cook another few minutes, then cook the fettucine and add to the beans. Season the noodles with salt and pepper and toss with the favas. Serve garnished with a sprinkling of chives.

I liked the idea of combining sautéed fava beans with saffron, but I also wanted to combine them with ricotta salata, an idea I'd swiped from yet another recipe. Our fava bean and pasta recipe went something like this.

Fava beans & farfalle

1 pound fresh fava beans
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
saffron
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
zest from one lemon, finely minced
4 spring onions, chopped
1 lb farfalle
1/2 cup grated ricotta salata
salt and pepper
basil leaves

Shell and skin the fava beans [see directions above]. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the saffron, stir briefly so that the olive oil begins taking on the saffron's color, then add the fava beans. Sauté the beans for 30-60 seconds, then add the garlic and the lemon zest and sauté for another few minutes, until the garlic becomes lightly golden. Turn off the heat and add the spring onions, folding them into the mixture.

Meanwhile cook the farfalle until al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving about a cup of the pasta water.

In a large bowl, mix together the pasta, the fava bean mixture, and the ricotta salata, adding a bit of the pasta water if the combination seems dry [note: you may not need to add any additional liquid]. Salt and pepper to taste, keeping in mind that the ricotta salata is very salty (hence the name), so make sure to taste the pasta before adding any salt, because you might not need any.

Have fun. Act fast. Eat well.

Good sources for fava bean recipes:

Judy Rodgers, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Vegetables
Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Café Cookbook
Alice Waters, Patricia Curtan, and Martine Labro, Chez Panisse: Pasta, Pizza, and Calzone
Paula Wolfert, Paula Wolfert's World of Food

Great source for fava beans:

Birri & frères, Jean-Talon Market, 276-3202

aj

Black Gold

fig. a: Brussels in December

Late last year, I found myself back in Brussels. This time around I was sans Michelle, I was working long-ish days, and, it being December, the city had a very different feel to it. Gone were the long, largely improvised strolls back and forth across the city in search of little treasures of all sorts--cultural, gastronomic, and otherwise. Gone were the long hours of daylight and the mild temperatures. In July we'd only been in Brussels for two or three days, but it had seemed like a week of adventures. Probably had something to do with the fact that we ate about a week's worth of food.

Anyway, I still made some discoveries on this latest trip to Belgium,

fig. b: discovery 1

fig. c: discovery 2

fig. d: discovery 3

but the only true culinary coup came on night #2--and it was a good one. In fact, it was one of my best meals of the year.*

From the outside, with a slow shutter speed, it looked something like this.

fig. e: La Bonne Humeur

The window ("specialité de moules") and that gunnysack behind it said it all: this was a serious mussels establishment. So serious, in fact, that they only serve mussels in season--which is why Michelle and I ate not a single, solitary mussel during our summer vacation.

The place was called La Bonne Humeur, and it was located east of the city center along Chaussée de Louvain. It was a bit of a haul from my hotel in Schaarbeek, and the night I chose to go it was absolutely raw out--cold, drizzling rain, windy--but the combination of the walk and the weather sure worked up an appetite. In spite of the weather, La Bonne Humeur looked cheery and inviting from the outside, and inside it was warm and friendly. Just the name alone ("the good humor") was enough to begin restoring my spirits--the combination of the atmosphere and the heady aromas quite nearly completed the task.

By the time I sat down, there was just about nothing I wanted more than a steaming cauldron of moules and the good people at La Bonne Humeur were happy to oblige. By the kilo. That's right, the standard portion of mussels at La Bonne Humeur is a healthy 2.2 pounds of the plumpest, juiciest Dutch mussels (from Zeeland, naturally) you could possibly imagine. I loved the way they served them too: heaped in a heavy, enameled cast-iron cauldron (in other words, as they should be), with plenty of celery and fennel, and plenty of broth. Their frites were good, too. Not quite Frites Flagey-good, but fresh, crisp, and piping hot, and served with a tangy homemade mayonnaise. With a cold beer and The New Yorker's Food Issue at my side, this was pretty much my ideal businessman's dinner.

So I came back to Montreal raving. But the thing is, I could sense reluctance on Michelle's part. I kept saying how much I wanted to try and replicate my feast at La Bonne Humeur, and she kept saying, "uh, huh." So I pressed her on the matter and it turned out she liked mussels, but she'd never had a plate of mussels that she'd ever loved. "Never?," I asked. "Never."

Well, those days are gone. When I finally got Michelle to agree to let me make my La Bonne Humeur special for her with the plumpest, juiciest P.E.I. mussels I could find, she changed her tune. Now I have carte blanche to make them whenever I want. And the thing about mussels is: they're so affordable. When was the last time you bought over 4 pounds of Grade A seafood and the cost came in under $10? Thought so.

Now, I don't have La Bonne Humeur's actual recipe, but with the help of a few friends, like Richard Olney and Julia Child, I was able to get close.

fig. f: mussels soaking in brine

Moules à La Bonne Humeur

4-4 1/2 lbs fresh mussels, scrubbed, then soaked in salt water for 15 to 20 minutes prior to cooking
1/2 cup minced shallots, green onions, or finely minced onions
4 stalks celery, 2 cut into 3-4" lengths, 2 finely chopped
1/2 bulb fennel, thinly sliced
1 leek, cleaned, and finely chopped
6 tbsp butter
2 cups dry white wine
generous handful of parsley, chopped or whole
1 bay leaf
1/4-1/2 tsp fresh thyme
freshly ground black pepper

As noted (and pictured) above, make sure to soak the mussels in briny salt water for 15-20 minutes prior to cooking.

Meanwhile, in a large pot or, preferably, a large enameled cast-iron cauldron, heat one tablespoon of the butter over medium heat. Add the shallots (or onions) and sauté until softened and sweet, 5-10 minutes. Add the finely chopped celery, the fennel, and the leek and sauté for 5 minutes more. Add the wine, the remainder of the butter, the celery lengths, the parsley, the bay leaf, the thyme, and the black pepper, bring the wine to a boil, and reduce for 2-3 minutes.

Add the mussels. Cover tightly and boil over high heat, shaking and tossing the contents (while holding the lid firmly in place) from time to time over a period of 3-5 minutes (and up to 10 minutes). The vast majority of the mussels shells should have opened.

Give the mussels another healthy grind of black pepper and serve heaped in bowls with plenty of the broth ladled over.

We didn't have an enameled chaudron large enough to cook 2 kg of mussels, so we made ours in a large pot. Our largest enameled chaudron was just large enough to serve our big, beautiful batch of mussels, however, so that's exactly what we did.

Serves two.

fig. g: moules à La Bonne Humeur

Note: common wisdom says to discard any and all mussels that haven't opened after the required cooking time. However, both Richard Olney and John Bil (formerly of Montreal's Joe Beef, and currently with New York's Flex Mussels) recommend using good old-fashioned common sense. Open the culprit with a knife, take a good look. If it looks fine and smells fine, it probably is fine. In fact, Olney insists that the ones that need to be forced open with a knife (after adequate cooking time, of course) "are often the best."

"What about the frites," you say? Well, we didn't make actual Belgian-style frites, but we used our current #1 roasted potato recipe and came up with a substitute that was perfectly acceptable and downright delicious. The recipe goes something like this...

Zuni Café Roasted Potatoes

1 1/2 pounds yellow-fleshed potatoes, peeled or not, cut into irregular 1- to 1 1/2-inch chunks
salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400º F.

Place the potatoes in a 4-quart saucepan and add cold water to cover by a few inches. Salt the water liberally, stir to dissolve, and taste--it should be well seasoned. (Judy Rodgers recommends "a scant 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt per quart water.") Bring to a simmer over high heat and stir again, then reduce the heat so that it just holds the simmer. Cook until the potatoes are soft on the edges and tender inside, about 6-12 minutes, depending on the potato and the size of your chunks (generally, 10 minutes is ideal for us). Drain well. Taste. The potatoes should be perfectly seasoned and tasty already. Place in a bowl while still warm.

Add the olive oil and toss to coat. Don't worry if some of the slightly overcooked potatoes crumble a bit. Those bits will end up becoming heavily coveted crunchy bits when the roasting is done.

Transfer the potatoes and their oil (and any potato bits) to a roasting pan that is both wide and shallow. Roast until golden, rotating the pan and stirring the potatoes as needed so that they color evenly. Judy Rodgers recommends 20-25 minutes, but we've found that to get the potatoes to the state of perfection, it takes a good 45-60 minutes.

Once the potatoes are perfectly golden-brown and crispy, they'll hold well (according to Judy Rodgers, they may even improve) at 275º F, making this recipe ideal as a roasted potato recipe for dinner parties and large groups.

We found that they were also pretty choice with our moules, especially with mayonnaise (preferably homemade) mixed with a dollop of strong mustard.

Serves 4 as a side.

[based very closely on Judy Rodgers' Rosemary-Roasted Potatoes (her original throws "bruised" rosemary leaves into the mix) from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook]

Serve the two recipes above with a nice green salad and a fine beer or crisp white wine. Even non-believers will see the light. Even the ill-humored will suddenly discover good humor.

Or, when in Brussels:
La Bonne Humeur, 244 Chaussée de Louvain, 1000 Brussels

aj

ps--many thanks to Clotilde for the tip.

* Sorry, Michelle.

Zuni Nation

During our trip to San Francisco two years ago, we ate a number of memorable meals, as you might have been able to tell from our 10-part "Revelations" series. Among those that continue to stand out after all this time, however, is our Zuni Cafe meal, the very last meal of our trip. Was it the space's triangular shape? Its wood-fired oven? Sitting upstairs in a cozy booth? Their sinfully good roasted chicken with bread salad? Or was it the fact that the Zuni Cafe got the honor (unbeknownst to them) of putting the finishing touches on our California holiday? [Answer: all of the above.] Since finally getting Judy Rodgers' inspirational The Zuni Cafe Cookbook a few months ago, the recipe for roasted chicken just kept beckoning to us until we could bear it no longer. We finally gave in and decided, "That's that," we had to try to recreate some of the magic of that fateful night.

In her preamble to the recipe, Rodgers attributes their roast chicken's renown to a combination of elements which includes the cafe's wood-fired oven, the high quality of their birds, and the practice that one gets when roasting hundreds of chickens a week. But, that said, the basic key to their success lies in three things, three things over which all of us have a fair bit more control: a small-sized chicken, high heat, and salting the chicken 24 hours in advance. You may not be able to duplicate the lovely smoky flavor that the Zuni Cafe's oven imparts, but otherwise there's no reason to despair, and Rodgers insists that The Zuni Cafe Cookbook's recipe has been thoroughly tested and fine-tuned for the home environment. That was enough for us. We took her word for it and plunged right in the other night.

And the bottom line is this: stop whatever you are doing, print out the recipe below, run to your local butcher, and pick up the nicest small-sized chicken you can find. That's how essential this recipe is. Aside from picking out a 2 3/4 - 3 1/2 pound chicken and taking the time to salt it properly, the trick (again) is to roast the bird at a very high temperature, 450°F, and it was that detail that really piqued our interest. We couldn't believe that such an indelicate method would get the results we (and the Zuni Cafe) were looking for. There's no question about it, this high-heat method really is very dramatic. The fat sputters a fair bit when the bird hits the sizzling cast-iron pan,



and the kitchen definitely gets a little smoky, but it's very worth it.

The Zuni Cafe chicken is one of the best homemade roast chickens we've ever had, and, as leaders of the Mile End chapter of the SCC, we've had our fair share. Don't go thinking you can skip the bread salad, either. That would be a terrible mistake. That bread salad is truly extraordinary; quite simply one of the best salads (of any kind) either of us has had the pleasure of encountering. The whole ensemble is perfect on a misty San Francisco night, as we found out in 2005. It's pretty awesome on a chilly Montreal winter night, too. Now, if only we had a fireplace, or one of those old-time Québécois bread-baking ovens that we've been reading about recently...

Anyway, if you're not already a proud owner of The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, and there are plenty of other good reasons to pick up a copy, here goes:

Zuni Roast Chicken (serves 2-4)

one small chicken, about 3 lbs.
4 sprigs rosemary, thyme or sage
2 1/4 tsp. coarse salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1-3 days before serving, rinse the chicken and dry completely. Tuck the herbs under the skin on the breast and thighs. Sprinkle inside and out with salt and pepper, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one day, but up to three.

for the bread salad:

a day-old medium loaf of peasant-style bread, not sourdough
6 tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp. champagne vinegar
salt and pepper
1 tbsp. currants
1 tsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. warm water
2 tbsp. pine nuts, toasted slightly
2-3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup slivered scallions
2 Tbsp. lightly salted water
1 bunch arugula, watercress or any other bitter green

Remove most of the crust from the loaf of bread and slice into thick chunks. Brush with olive oil and broil until golden on both sides. Let cool. Rip the chunks into rough pieces of varying sizes and place in a bowl. Mix 1/4 cup olive oil with the Champagne vinegar and salt and pepper. Add about 1/4 cup of it to the bread. Toss. Mix the currants with the red wine vinegar and warm water. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 475°F. Heat a cast-iron pan over medium heat. Remove chicken from the fridge and shake off some of the salt, though you don't need to remove it all. Do not rinse the chicken. Pat dry with a paper towel if condensation has formed. Place chicken in the pan, breast-side up, and place in the oven. Roast for 30 min. If the skin is browning too quickly, reduce the oven temperature a bit. Carefully turn the bird over and roast for another 10-20 min. Finish breast-side up for 5 minutes to crisp up the skin. It should take about 45 min. to roast.

Meanwhile, sauté the garlic and scallions with a bit of olive oil until soft, but not browned. Add to the bread along with the pine nuts and drained currants. Add a bit of salted water, salt and pepper to taste and toss. Place in a baking dish and cover with foil. Place the salad in the oven after the final flip of the chicken.

Remove the chicken from the oven and turn off the heat, leaving the bread salad in there to warm up. Let the chicken rest on a serving platter while you skim off the fat from the roasting pan. Deglaze the pan with a bit of water and any drippings that the cooling chicken has given off.

Place the bread salad back in its bowl, drizzle with a spoonful (or two) of the pan juices, add the greens, a bit of vinaigrette and toss. Season to taste. Place a generous heap of salad on each plate. Carve up the chicken and serve on top of the bread salad. Enter heaven.

Worked like a charm.

[Judy Rodgers' The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons From San Francisco's Beloved Restaurant was published in 2002.]

am/km